An Afternoon in the Garden with Aziraphale
by LadyDivine91
Summary: Every afternoon, Aziraphale goes to the same park, sits at the same bench, and meets the same man. ... An hour later, he doesn't remember any of it. Aziraphale x Crowley


_**Notes:**_

_**I re-wrote one of my old stories for the inbox prompt, "What do I have to do?" I can see this becoming a full fic. Let me know what you think?**_

Aziraphale settles onto his park bench, wiggles into his usual spot, and with a deep, relaxed sigh, becomes one with the weathered wood. He opens the book he brought with him but doesn't begin to read. Not yet. He takes a long look at his surroundings - the people walking by dressed in smart black suits and ties (odd for a regular old Tuesday but who is he to judge); the clear, cloudless blue sky; the fresh cut grass, soft and fragrant beneath his feet. He takes a breath in and holds it for three before exhaling out to the Universe.

Then he smiles.

He loves it here. This garden, it's his own private Eden – quiet and peaceful, with an air of love and possibility carried on every breeze that skirts around him. It's the kind of place that fills you with joy without even trying.

Fills you with hope when you need it.

The bench he's sitting on is not _his_ bench, per se, but he likes to think of it as his. It's the one he sits at every day so it might as well be his. Maybe he'll dictate in his will that after he dies, someone needs to buy a plaque for this bench that says _Aziraphale Sat Here … A Lot_. Not that he ever has to fight for it, which always strikes him as odd because it's by far the best bench in the park - set beside an ancient oak whose branches are spaced just right so that it lets the rays of afternoon sun peek through whilst shielding him from the bulk of their glare, keeping him comfortably cool.

There's a nightingale in that oak. He knows it. He can't see it, never has, but he thinks he hears it sometimes, singing a special song just for him.

His bench overlooks the duck pond at a perfect distance so that overflow doesn't drench the ground beneath his feet. Various water fowl walk their families past it in search of spare crusts of bread. He forgot the stale loaf he leaves by his front door, like he did yesterday and the day before. It's probably molded by now. He'll toss it and wait for another one to go stale, but it irks him.

He hates wasting things.

It's strange how much his mind has been wandering off on him lately that he can't even remember to grab a loaf of bread on his way out the door.

The temperature is warm for a start-of-spring day and Aziraphale invites it. He's getting sick of chilly weather. But the sun doesn't feel the way it used to. He can't explain the difference, but then who would he explain it to? He doesn't talk to his old friends anymore. No one calls. No one comes to visit. It bothered him once, mostly because he himself couldn't wrap his mind around who exactly he'd been missing. He couldn't recall a name or a face. But it doesn't bother him so much now. He's gotten used to the solitude. He finds he quite likes spending time alone.

Maybe it's because he's getting older, he thinks. After all, he's roughly …

Aziraphale's head jerks up while he thinks. For some reason, he can't remember how old he is. He tries to do the math in his head, but he can't recall the year. He saw his face in the mirror this morning while he straightened his bowtie and thought that he looked pretty good for around fifty, but is that really how old he is? He chuckles weakly, perturbed. It's such a weird feeling not remembering how old you are. It's not like it's waiting on the tip of his tongue or lingering in the back of his mind out of reach.

It's gone.

Completely gone.

What the hell is going on?

He decides to shrug it off. He's probably tired. He'll go to bed an hour earlier tonight. That should fix it.

Yes. A little sleep should fix everything.

He looks down at the book he's reading, the one he's been waiting all morning to get back to, and frowns. Everything on the page in front of him looks like nonsense. He flips through it, trying to find a page that makes sense, but many of them are empty.

Why would he have a book with nonsense printed in it?

Perhaps it's a misprint? He does have a few. Collectors' items mostly. He must have grabbed the wrong book by mistake. But he was so sure when he left that he'd taken the right one. He'd checked the spine and everything … hadn't he?

Maybe this is a dream, Aziraphale thinks anxiously. That might explain the off sensation of the sun on his face. But on the bright side, if it is a dream, Aziraphale can conjure himself a friend. A sweet, kind, handsome companion who …

"Hello, Aziraphale."

Aziraphale smiles.

_Jackpot._

The voice comes out of nowhere, convincing Aziraphale that he is, in fact, dreaming. If it wasn't for the pain in the center of his forehead, that's been strengthening over time, throbbing when he turns toward the voice, he'd be sold.

The owner of the voice saunters up to the bench and stops. He's dressed in black and backlit, a broken halo of sunlight surrounding his head, filtering into Aziraphale's vision, so he can't make out the details of the stranger's face. But something in that voice sounded familiar.

More than familiar.

It sounded like home.

Aziraphale raises a hand to block the sun and hopefully get a better view.

"Do I … do I know you?" he asks. With his hand over his eyes, he can see the man's sculpted cheekbones, the steep slope of his nose, his fire-red hair, a brow furrowed in amusement, dark black sunglasses covering his eyes, and a strange twist of a smile that resembles a thought Aziraphale had a while ago when he …

When he _what_? What was he doing when he thought of a smile like that? He hasn't a clue.

"Occasionally," the man replies. He gestures to the bench. "May I?"

Aziraphale raises an eyebrow. He doesn't know why he's hesitant. Wasn't he thinking a second ago how wonderful it would be to meet a congenial stranger in his dreams? This man definitely fits that bill … and then some. But that smile …

There's a secret hiding on his lips. And the way he looks at him ... Aziraphale can't see his eyes behind those lenses, but he knows they're trained on him. Like they know him, like they've seen him before, and not sitting on a bench in St. James's Park. But like the conundrum of his age, why he feels that way keeps ducking out of reach.

"Be my guest," Aziraphale says. They're in a huge park in a city filled with people. There is no way this man is here for _him_. He's here for the park, the peace and quiet, the pond. And as Aziraphale mentioned to himself before, he's sitting on the best bench here.

That has to be it.

The man sits – no, drapes himself over the opposite end of the bench, sunk down, legs spread, taking up more room than humanly necessary, but that doesn't annoy Aziraphale.

He finds it charming.

"It's been a long time since I've read the works of Oscar Wilde," the man says, glancing over at the book open in Aziraphale's lap. "Do you like Oscar Wilde?"

"Oh, this isn't …" Aziraphale starts, ready to set the man straight. He didn't bring the works of Oscar Wilde. The book he brought is gibberish. But when he looks down, he sees words printed on the page. Words that make sense.

_"Yet each man kills the thing he loves,  
By each let this be heard,  
Some do it with a bitter look,  
Some with a flattering word… "_

"What …?" Aziraphale turns the book to the spine and sees it – _The Works of Oscar Wilde: Essays, Criticisms, and Reviews_. He flips to the title page and sees the same, the fine print suggesting that it might even be a first edition to boot! But everything about it from the front cover to the center spread was indecipherable chicken scratch a minute ago.

Wasn't it?

"Something the matter?"

"Uh, no," Aziraphale says quickly. "No, there's nothing the matter. I …" Aziraphale closes the book and examines the cover again – grey canvas, with slight creasing on the spine, nothing that would depreciate it. But the monetary value means nothing to him. He recognizes it. It's definitely his book, and an important one, too. It was a present. Someone gave it to him. An _important_ someone. "I thought I had grabbed the wrong book."

"Do you not fancy Oscar Wilde? Were you hoping for a different book perhaps? Something by D. H. Lawrence possibly?" the man asks, and Aziraphale knows by his tone that he's teasing.

Being teased by this man warms Aziraphale more than the wonky sun.

"No, this is the book I wanted. Thank you." Aziraphale opens to the middle and pretends to read, hiding his bashful eyes. The man smiles, reaching for Aziraphale's knee as if it were the most normal thing to do, but stops short with his hand hovering in the air. A second later, his smile fades. He curls his fingers in and brings his hand back to his side.

"You know, it's been kind of a bizarre afternoon," Aziraphale admits, looking at the hand no longer anywhere near his knee. "I've been forgetting a lot of things."

"Oh?" It's a single, non-committal syllable, but when the man says it, he sounds disappointed.

"Yes."

"Like what?"

"Well, I usually bring a bag of stale bread with me to the park. For the ducks. But I keep forgetting to grab it on my way out the door."

"Isn't that it there? In the bag for life?"

Aziraphale looks down at the bench, at the empty space between himself and the man, then back at him with questioning eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I mean over there." The man points past Aziraphale to the other end of the bench. "Isn't that your bag of bread?"

Aziraphale looks over his shoulder, giving a startled jump when he sees it – a bag for life, like the man said, lumpy with the remains of his stale bread loaf. "Well I'll be." He reaches down, touches it cautiously, as if it might leap up on its own, sprout legs, and run away. "How did _this_ get here?"

"Perhaps by magic?"

"I do perform magic," Aziraphale says, examining the bag of bread.

"Do you now?"

"Yes! I learned a long time ago." He turns to the man beaming, more than eager to offer a demonstration. "Back in …" Aziraphale pauses, his eagerness washing away suddenly, unexpectedly "… no. No, that can't be right."

"What can't be right?"

"I was going to say that I learned magic from John Maskelyne, back in the 1870s, but that can't be right. I … I can't have been alive that long. Could I?"

"Perhaps you could be." The man sits straight, leans over an inch. "Perhaps you're _immortal_."

Aziraphale tuts and rolls his eyes. "Good Lord. Now you're just being silly."

"Am I? You said so yourself it's been a bizarre afternoon. You've forgotten things, haven't you? You might have forgotten that."

Aziraphale scoffs, but now that the man has said it, something about that notion nags at him. "No, I ... that's impossible. Immortality isn't real. I must be dreaming."

"There's a simple way we can check if you're dreaming or not."

Aziraphale tilts his head. "How?"

The man leans closer. Aziraphale mirrors the move, ready to hear the secret.

Ready to hear all this man's secrets, if he's willing to spill.

"Come with me," the man whispers, and the words – those three little words – take Aziraphale's breath, the next one, and three or four after that. "Have lunch with me. Go for a drive with me. I'll take you anywhere you want to go. Just name it."

"Even if I said, I don't know … _take me to the Ritz_?"

"Absolutely. I can get us a reservation with the snap of my fingers. Just say the word and I will."

Time slows as Aziraphale debates what he should do. He's not an idiot. He can't go with this man. Even if he's right about everything he said, Aziraphale has only known him about three minutes. He might get stuffed into the boot of a car and driven out to the middle of nowhere. Not for ransom. It should be quite obvious by his clothing that he's not worth much. But he can't assume this man wants to do him harm either. Whatever would the purpose be?

It feels so nice to talk to him though. To be flirted with, if that is indeed what's happening. Aziraphale can't remember the last time someone flirted with him. There's such an allure to this man, like he was made to order – a perfect match for Aziraphale, plucked straight from his brain. Aziraphale doesn't exactly feel like he's meeting him. He feels like he's finding him.

Like he was meant to find him.

But how can he if they've never met?

Aziraphale refuses to rule out dreaming, or maybe a hallucination, but none of that makes this decision easy. So he comes up with a response that will solve all of those issues at once. At least, he hopes it does. He doesn't want to frighten the man off.

But if this is a dream, he'll be back.

"Find me here tomorrow," Aziraphale whispers back, "and we'll see."

The man smiles. It's sad, but still as radiant as his others. He taps the bench with his forefinger, then drums the rest across the wood. This brings attention to a ring on his pinkie finger that Aziraphale didn't notice before. A ring that makes Aziraphale's eyes go wide. The ring is gold with wings, but that's all Aziraphale sees before the man stands. It fills a void in his brain but leaves no explanation.

But like a seed, it starts to grow.

"It's a date. I'll see you tomorrow, angel."

"Tomorrow it is then, Mr. …?"

"Crowley," the man says with a defeated sigh. "Anthony J Crowley."

Aziraphale's brows snap together. "Anthony?"

"You don't like it?"

"I didn't say that. You just don't _look_ like an Anthony." Aziraphale bites his lower lip, his cheeks dimpling over the fact that his man cares what he thinks about his name. "I'll get used to it."

"I hope you do."

Aziraphale doesn't watch the man go. That's not how he wants to remember him – walking away. Besides, with every step the man takes, Aziraphale can't help feeling like something dear to him is leaving, too. He returns to his book, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he scans the page, but he can't bring himself to read. Whatever Wilde has to say, it's of no interest to him now.

* * *

Crowley stands from the edge of the bed, and with a wistful glance back, walks out of the bedroom. He doesn't close the door behind him. He doesn't want the click of the lock to disturb Aziraphale in any way. Besides, he wants to be able to peek in on him whenever he pleases without tipping the angel off.

If he breaks the illusion, it might damage Aziraphale's mind.

That's what he's been told, anyway.

He lingers for a moment to watch his angel. Aziraphale smiles, staring in the direction of his book but not reading it, not turning the pages, wiggling in his seat and giggling to himself. That's the way Crowley loves to see his angel.

Giddy.

Smiling.

Hopeful.

At peace.

But he can't simply stand here staring at Aziraphale all day. There's work to be done. Mysteries to figure out.

And that happens in the kitchen.

He makes his way there – a hop, skip, and a jump from the bedroom since he's bent space and rearranged the rooms of his flat so that no matter where he goes, he's no more than ten paces from Aziraphale.

"So, book girl," Crowley greets Anathema, herself bent over several books spread out on his kitchen table, a cauldron of oily green liquid bubbling on the stove top, "you any closer to figuring out how to fix this?"

"No more than I was yesterday, I'm afraid," she answers offhandedly, focused on the words in front of her more than the demon skulking about.

Crowley huffs, giving her an irritated once over. He's never been what one would call polite, or _patient_, but he's so over that as an answer. He really is. He'd accept her lying to him, even a little, if he never again has to hear the sentence _No more than I was yesterday, I'm afraid_. It's become a catch phrase, and she wields it as if she's required by law to say it.

"You've told me that every day for the past year, book girl!"

Anathema stops reading and sighs sympathetically in response. There was a time when Crowley's barking would make her jump out of her skin. She'd been wary of Crowley from the first. Even before she knew he was a demon, something about him felt dangerous. After becoming sort-of friends, she only felt truly comfortable around him when Aziraphale was present, which was always, so there was no issue there.

The night Crowley showed up alone on her doorstep, soaked to the skin with rain, looking as if he'd been through hell and back (which, as it turns out, he had), was the scariest night of her life. Her heart had stopped dead in her chest when she opened the door and saw him, and she desperately feared it would never start up again. Hair plastered to his face, eyes glowing yellow, cracks in his skin that bled black, fangs she'd never seen piercing the skin of his lower lip - he looked like a monster.

An honest to God monster.

But then he crumpled to a heap at her feet, begging for her help, and she knew he wasn't going to hurt her. Whatever kind of demon he is, and she has yet to ascertain that (she finds it rude to ask) he isn't the murdering kind.

"I've told you before," she says softly, "I don't know what they did to him. Not completely. The only thing I can guess with any certainty is that they destroyed his third eye."

"Destroyed?"

"Take a look at him – a good hard look at him the next time you see him. It should be in the center of his forehead, but it's not. It's not there anymore."

"And what would destroying that do to him exactly?"

Anathema shrugs. "Different sects of witches hypothesize differently, but they all seem to agree on the same thing."

"And that is …?"

"His memory is gone. Obliterated. And with it, any sense at all of who he actually is."

"So he may still have his magic," Crowley speculates, feeling optimistic for the first time in a year.

"Yes, he may."

"And we fix that … how?"

"Again, I don't know," she reveals, knowing she'll get a loud, dramatic groan in response.

And Crowley doesn't disappoint.

"Demon magic and Holy magic aren't the same as witch magic," she says over him. "It comes from a different place. Yours comes from Hell, his comes from Heaven. Mine comes from Earth."

"Your point?" Exasperation adds an edge to his words that he'd been trying his hardest to edit out on the day to day. Not necessarily for Anathema's sake, though he did consider her a friend and undeserving of his anger. She practically lives at his flat now in her attempt to help them out, and gets about as much sleep a night as he does.

But more than anything, Crowley doesn't want Aziraphale to find out.

He doesn't want Aziraphale disappointed in him.

"My point is I don't know where on the spectrum of magic it falls. Is it weaker? Is it stronger? Is it somewhere in between? Because if that's the case, _I should be able to do something, shouldn't I_?" She grumbles that, sounding as frustrated as he feels. "But I've tried everything I can think of. I'm not saying I'm done," she says, putting a hand up to stop him interjecting before she can finish. "Not in the slightest. But I need to do some research. I need books I don't have, scrolls, some artifacts. And I might need some help."

Crowley's left eyebrow takes a sharp leap up. "What _kind_ of help?"

"Help that I can't negotiate. Help that … only you can."

"I'm not leaving, if that's what you're implying!" Crowley yells. "I'm not going _anywhere_ without him!"

"You may not have a choice."

"I don't think you get it!" He rounds on her, gripping the back of a chair it's taking all his resolve not to throw across the room. "That's not some nobody in my room, not some random angel of God! He's my _entire life_! My whole reason for existing! And the only reason he remembers as much as he does after an entire year is because I talk to him every day. If I leave and don't return, even for one day, I run the risk of losing him." The next words in the queue are so difficult, he nearly has to wrench them out of his throat. "I can't do that. I … _can't_."

"You're right. I don't understand." Anathema pushes her chair away from the table and walks over to him. "Not completely. I have no idea what you're going through. I wasn't raised to have a life with friendship and love. I was raised to have a _purpose_. Purpose is fine, but it can also get cold and empty. So I've never had what you have. Not even in the smallest degree. But I do know that if I did, I would hold onto it with everything I have. Every piece of my soul. _That_ I know."

Crowley's rage extinguishes a degree, and that, ironically, infuriates him. He wants to be angry at Anathema, but he's not. He's angry that it's been a year and Aziraphale still doesn't seem to be any closer to remembering him than he did after Heaven fucking zapped his memory. 6000 years he's spent with Aziraphale – eating with him, bantering with him, annoying the ever loving heck out of him. He should be glad he had so much of that. Humans don't get that with their loved ones. Not even close. But the time they would have spent now would have been different than the past. They'd finally come to terms with their feelings for one another. They would have been together as a couple in love, able to express that love without fear of losing what they had as friends. Crowley feels cheated out of the time he can't ever get back, all those moments when he should have stopped being a coward and simply said, "I love you, Aziraphale."

He wishes he had that, at least, because the future, from his standpoint, looks bleak.

These visits with Aziraphale in his bedroom are all Crowley has.

They might be all he ever has.

Fuck God and Her fucking plan! Fuck the games she fucking plays with the Universe!

And fuck Gabriel!

_FUCK GABRIEL!_

If Crowley ever sees that stuck up, self-righteous, bureaucratically cruel sack of festering horseshit again, he won't hesitate to light him up like a damned Roman candle. He doesn't care if Heaven comes down on him with Holy Water after that. Every day he's reminded that he's losing the only damned thing that ever mattered to him. At this point, if Crowley disappeared into the ether, it wouldn't affect Aziraphale a single iota. Crowley has enough money socked away to keep Aziraphale comfortable for a lifetime. For a _thousand_ lifetimes. He could stay here in Crowley's flat, on that park bench in his mind, until reality crumbles down around him.

Anathema would look after him. He's certain she would. She would take care of him, then her daughters, then their sons. But Aziraphale would become an heirloom – an eccentric old man with no memory who gets passed down to her children's children's children throughout the generations.

Crowley sighs.

That's no sort of existence for his angel. He can't do that to Aziraphale, no matter how good lighting Gabriel up would feel.

"He's my angel," Crowley argues, but the way those words lodge in his throat, they sound more like a plea. "But in an hour, he won't remember that I've been here. That I've seen him. Not the way I want him to. But _I'll _remember. I'll remember, and that's … that's all we've got."

Anathema shakes her head, her dark eyes set, cheeks flushing a fiery pink. "No, that's all _you've_ got, Crowley! And it's not enough! It's _not enough_! We need _more_! He _deserves_ more! If you want your angel to remember you, if you want him to have his life back, you have to get off your ass and fight for those memories! They're important to you, yes? _He's_ important to you?"

"Of course, he's important to me!" Crowley growls, unaccustomed to anyone outside of Aziraphale and Hell taking this tone with him. He understands that it might be necessary, but that doesn't mean he likes it.

Regardless of the fact that that demonic growl of Crowley's weeds beneath Anathema's skin, rooting through her darkest nightmares and chilling her to her core, she presses on because she's got him. She's gotten him to drop the cloak of self-pity he's been wearing for a year and come to his senses.

Now she needs to get him moving.

"The real question now is are you willing to do it? Are you willing to fight for him? Are you willing to do what needs to get done, no matter the cost?"

Crowley closes his eyes, absorbs her words. She's right. He knows she's right. And he's known it for a while. In retrospect, he could kill himself for not abiding by her words earlier, but he'd been selfish. Scared. He doesn't want to leave Aziraphale. He doesn't want to be apart from him for a single day. He doesn't know how many of them he has left. He'd come to terms with the idea of never having Aziraphale back so deeply that he was almost okay with their life the way it stood now. But that's not fair. His angel loves him. He trusts him. And if Crowley were in the same position, Aziraphale wouldn't be moping inside his bookshop waiting for something to happen.

He'd be out ensuring it did.

When Crowley opens his eyes again and looks at Anathema, they're full of actual fire. "Fine, book girl. What do I have to do?"


End file.
